The Original Sin of Frank Rich
As I argued in a long post (with citations) on the meaning of Brown, Marshall’s long march leading to Brown involved argument after argument in legal briefs undermining the legitimacy of racial classification by the state. Examples:
- Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws. Sipuel v. Oklahoma State Board of Regents, 332 U.S. 631 (1948)
- There is no understandable factual basis for classification by race. … Sweatt v. Painter, 339 US 629 (1950)
- Racial criteria are irrational, irrelevant, odious to our way of life and specifically proscribed under the Fourteenth Amendment. McLaurin v. Oklahoma, 339 U.S. 637 (1950)
Thus it should be no surprise that Marshall argued the same thing in Brown:
The Fourteenth Amendment precludes a state from imposing distinctions or classifications based upon race and color alone. The State of Kansas has no power thereunder to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities to its citizens. [Marshall’s Brief in Brown, p. 5]
As Robert Carter, who signed the brief and argued Brown along with Marshall, asserted in the oral argument, “our position is that there is no rational basis for classification based on race.” I could go on (as in fact I did in the long post linked above).
Similarly, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which Rich still claims to regard as an icon, requires official colorblindness as clearly as words can (even though courts have “construed” it otherwise). Thus, in Title VI:
No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
“Lest this be unclear,” as I noted here, and as it apparently is to Rich et al., “the Department of Justice’s Title VI Legal Manual explains that discrimination occurs when ‘similarly situated persons are treated differently because of their race, color, or national origin.’”
In his later years Thurgood Marshall abandoned the principle that he advocated so effectively in his earlier years, the principle embodied in his greatest success, Brown, and the Civil Rights Act providing that every American should be treated “without regard” to race, creed, or color. Like most liberals of his and subsequent generations, he began to demand color consciousness instead of colorblindness, preferential treatment instead of equal treatment.
Frank Rich is perfectly free to agree, as he does, with the later Marshall, to prefer color-conscious preferences to colorblind equality. What he is not free to do is what he did in his July 4 column (a reprise of similar arguments in many columns): accuse those who still adhere to the colorblind principle articulated so well by Marshall over the years and embodied in Brown and the Civil Rights Act of being “self-righteous” and “delusional.”
If there is anyone in the ongoing debate over civil rights who richly (if you’ll pardon the pun) deserves to be described as self-righteous and delusional, it is Frank Rich himself.
But Rich and the other race-conscious progressives are the last to really do anything more constructive than to criticize America. If Rich were truly upset with black under-representation he would: Give up his job for a black; he would ask that the NYT hire more black reporters and staff; he would ask that the next ME be a black; he would ask that today’s colleges and universities fire half of their white professors and administration and hire blacks and hispanics; he would ask that the big three NBC,CBS and ABC fire their white nightly anchors and hire blacks in their position; he would ask that Harry Smith give up his morning position for a black and that the rest of the majority white morning shows hire blacks; he would ask that the white progressive 527s and on-line progressive media hire many, many more blacks to replace the over-abundance of whites; and finally he would ask that the white Dems in Congress fire half their white staffers and hire blacks.
But we know Rich is just a fake as is the progressive cause when it comes to race.
In the world of the liberal, it’s always the duty of someone else to bear the cost of their grand schemes.
Exactamundo!
John – I doubt that Frank Rich thinks very highly of Justice Clarence Thomas, but Thomas’ opinion of the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment (in the recent McDonald vs. Chicago case) was magnificent. While the opinion focused on the narrower issue of the 2nd Amendment, it ranged far afield inot the broader category of Civil Rights. Had the Supreme Court enforced that privileges and immunities clause in the way intended by its Republican authors(instead of nullifying via the Slaughterhouse and Cruickshank cases) American racial history could have been far different. One can only regret the opportunity lost to us by the Supreme Court’s nullification of that clause.
“Color consciousness” is just another way of saying “I’m a race-fixated racist, but I hide behind my liberal posture.”
The Left is inherently racist, because the old notion of race (which has, biologically speaking, shown to be untrue) is one way of dividing, and thus controlling, the people.
And Thomas Jefferson’s original draft did include a denunciation of slavery as one of the injustices imposed by George III.
This guy doesn’t have two working brain cells to rub together. Why bother?
Rich reveals his racism when he condescends and then “over-condescends” to African Americans. He’s one of those white cowards who is so afraid of blacks, and of being called a racist, that he’ll excuse anything, as long as he and his stuff are left alone. I’m sure next week he’ll write that PJM should leave those poor black panthers alone; they deserve to intimidate voters, or something.
The only way to have Equality Now! is to physically remove property, or negate rights from one party, and give it to another. A superficial justice.
How do you tell people who are starving, in whatever sense, to be patient? You take care of them “above the law”. Meanwhile, that scourge which beset them in the past is swallowed up by time while they heal. America wasn’t doing that. It was accepted that the law was enough to fix things. Blacks were supposed to fester in crime ridden unfunded neighborhoods and take stock in the Law? Now, anger and resentment has a foothold in that starving people. We should have been voluntarily doing what we are required to do now, so that it wouldn’t be a burden now, nor a foothold for evil.
The Law is supposed to augment reality toward a state of Justice. When that state of Justice is removed from it’s natural ‘invisible’ foundation and put upon physical (naturalistic) bowers the results is Arbitrariness, Confusion, and Inequality. Whenever a people are repentant the first course for them is to put away those Idols that have corrupted them. The Theory of Evolution is such a thing. The fact that this also has taken such a firm foothold in society makes me think there is little hope for a reversal of this downward trend we are witnessing.
People think there is progress because of luxury, but you can feel the eternal Lamenting now in a world that has pacified it’s hope in Divinity, and put it in reincarnation. Luxury is only a function of work, and humans will be working until the earth is purged with fire. Luxury is an illusion of safety. The only real safety and hope is in those invisible things that have never been taken away truly. The clean silhouettes on our halls of justice where their vestments once stood still testify.
But, like I said, I do not see the false theories that are plaguing the world being removed by voluntary and thoughtful consideration, but by physical jarring. Most of us have been placated from the “mountains of evidence” in favor of our naturalist status quo, haven’t we?
as I have stated before many times, the only country we are not ALLOWED to critisize is Israel. all other countries are open to critisism, united staes included
Yes, Miriam. Thank you for your post. I was beginning to worry that no on would remember to blame Jews.
what part of my post does it suggest that I am blaming the jews?
Miriam,
You do not appear to be blaming the Jews here, but because the thread on which you have posted has no discernable connection to Israel, Jews, the Middle East or anything associated with it, your post seems to be wildly off topic. One must inevitable ask the question – for what reason would someone post something so wildly off topic? There are few answers to that question other than those which paint a picture of someone so anxious, so straining at the bit, to say something bad about Israel and her defenders, that they would say something so obviously inappropriate to the topic at hand.
While I cannot see into the heart of such a person, I would suspect that there is a fire there, an unquenchable desire to denigrate the object of your ire, that being Israel and those who would defend her.
I hope this makes clear why you should carefully consider your true motivations and help you to understand others’ reactions to your strange response.
dafrank: i am not off of the topic at all. the problem with people on this site and huff post the liberal site is they label everyone.. the reason I posted this today is the minute you critisize Israel, you are either, anti semite, anti jews or sel hating jews, the fact that Mr. Rich is ctirisizng our government or just speaking his mind doen make unpatriotic or racist…
do you get my point?
The true irony of affirmative action is that it chiefly goes to already middle class blacks. Poor blacks have seen their economic condition decline. . . as indeed, poor untouchables have under Indian affirmative action programs for them, and poor Malaysians (as opposed to the ethnic Chinese) in Malaysia’s “sons of the soil” affirmative actions.
An unkind soul would point out that if poor blacks improved their condition, middle-class blacks would have to give up affirmative action. They have a conflict of interest.
I’m surprised no one mentioned July 4, 1863, the the day after the Battle of Gettysburg, which as much as anything cemented the freeing of slaves in Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Er, what? Are you confusing Gettysburg with Antietam, after which Lincoln did make the Emancipation Proclamation. Didn’t Pickett’s charge take place on July 4, the 3rd day of the Battle of Gettysburg?
If you are making the point that after Gettysburg, the South never really had a chance to win the War, then I take your point. Apart from that, do you have one?
Rich always reminds me of Boone, the snotty Jewish kid in Animal House who tries to ingratiate himself with the hip “Negro” musicians in the band only to be totally blown off by them.
Rich should have stuck to being a film critic. He has zero credibility
Slavery was not America’s original sin. It was here during the seventeenth century before there was an America. At the time no-one thought that there was anything wrong with it. That took time to develop. The opposition started in England itself in the Church of England. It spread to the United States where it took hold. There was no possibility of simply doing away with it. The Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence had enough to worry about without solving the problem of slavery. The abolitionist took time to develop. Finally we had a Civil War. Only that did the trick of getting rid of slavery.
Obama’s campaign speech on a post racial America was so moving I almost teared up. It was so inspiring and so uplifting. Unfortunately, the road to hell is paved with good speeches. We are now witnessing what a post racial America really is — a government where the president and those in his administration are perfectly comfortable in supporting the new Black Panthers intimidating voters with night stick/clubs and racial slurs; where justice is defined in a manner that enforces race discrimination only if a black not white person is the victim, and where echoes of Reverend Wright are not only the new reality, but are mirrored in the halls of justice. We are entering a very scary time for America if only a white person can be a racist and only a black the victim of racial discrimination. The principle of colorblindness is being trampled by a president who had the potential for ushering in a new era. Instead, thugs are actually being encouraged to harass voters at the polls by a president who refuses to acknowledge the dangerous thuggery of the new Black Panthers simply because they are his buddies doing his bidding at the polling booth.
Frank Rich needs to get his syphilis treated;it’s reached his brain!
To Helen Kaufman
Your words echoed mine completely.
I’m so impressed by your post that
I might use it word for word I hope
that I haVE YOUR PERMISSION,
kLARA